Mexico Chief Vows To Fight Rebels

Addressing a country still stunned by last week’s guerrilla attacks, a somber President Ernesto Zedillo pledged Sunday to fight the insurgents with the “full force of the state.”

In a nationally broadcast state of the union address from the Mexican Congress, Zedillo said his government was backed by a broad majority of Mexicans who “will not accept the emergence of outdated and bloody incidents of violence.” He vowed to “pursue every terrorist act with all our capacity.”

Zedillo’s tough remarks brought Mexico’s 600 senators and members of the Chamber of Deputies to their feet for an ovation. But his speech was also marred at moments by protests and an altercation on the floor of the Congress among opposition legislators.

Zedillo’s speech reflected the widespread rejection by mainstream political parties of the armed tactics of the new rebel group, the Popular Revolutionary Army.

But many politicians also criticized Zedillo for adhering to harsh economic austerity policies and offering limited proposals to confront the economic distress and broad gap between rich and poor that created fertile conditions for the guerrillas to grow.

As Zedillo spoke, reports came from several southern states indicating that the guerrillas’ attacks were broader than previously reported and, in Oaxaca state, were followed Saturday by fighting in mountainous terrain between security forces and retreating rebels.

The week’s fighting left at least 14 dead, and forced attention away from the country’s improving economy and recent democratic political reforms, which Zedillo hoped would be the centerpiece of his report, to mounting fears over political violence.

The attacks highlighted another Mexico from the one Zedillo tried to emphasize, the Mexico of deepening poverty where a corrupt and arbitrary political system stills hold sway at the grass roots.

Nonetheless, Zedillo got a big boost Sunday when a national poll showed that his popularity has increased considerably since June, mainly because of the economic recovery. In the poll, conducted by the Mexico City newspaper Reforma, 46 percent of those questioned said they approved of the way Zedillo is managing the country, up from 35 percent in June.

That is the highest public approval Zedillo has had since March 1995, when his popularity surged briefly after he ordered the arrest of Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of Mexico’s former president, on murder charges.

Zedillo said his government had built a national consensus around an agenda for political reform that has made guerrilla violence obsolete.

“Today less than ever can violence be justified,” he said. He said the rebels’ actions were aimed at “blocking the path to democracy and imposing their authors’ intolerant will on others.”

Politicians from across the spectrum agreed.

“We are not in favor of violence,” said Pedro Etienne Llano, a deputy from the left-of-center Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. “We are betting on democracy and political struggle.”

But many legislators accused Zedillo of failing to meet the new threat to Mexico’s stability with more generous social programs.